Monday, June 8, 2009

One Step Forward Two Steps Back... The Governments Strange Dance with GM and Fiysler!

The logic behind this ill fated rescue attempt of Green Motors and Fiysler (Fiat + Chyrsler = Fiysler, pronounced Fiz-ler) doesn't add up, but the tab that the government expects the taxpayer to pick up is mounting, and continues to add up and up and up! What started out as a $17.4 billion dollar bridge loan from the Treasury Department, via the Mother of all political slush funds, the TARP program, to forestall the inevitable GM and Fiysler bankruptcy has turned into an ongoing corporate welfare scheme whose price tag so far is a whopping $80 billion or so.

Even the No More Corporate Welfare Chorus in Congress has now changed it's tune, and is singing that classic hit by The Car's: "Let the Good Times Roll"! It is a pity these song birds don't know the next several lines of the song which are as follows:

Let the good times rollLet them knock you aroundLet the good times rollLet them make you a clown

As the Auto Oracles in Washington warned, to let GM, or Fiysler for that matter fall into bankruptcy would mean the end of automobile manufacturing in the US and the collapse of the entire auto supply chain. As the months since it's dire warnings have passed, and the costs of keeping GM and Fiysler out of bankruptcy have skyrocketed, we can now see that it wasn't the sky that was falling, it was GM and Fiysler. The sky is still overhead where it belongs, and now so too are GM and Fiysler where they belong: in bankruptcy.

If the new GM and Fiysler that emerge from bankruptcy as less bloated organizations with greatly reduced liabilities, courtesy of taxpayers, bondholders, auto dealers and the rule of law, can be seen as one step forward, then the continuing militant culture of the UAW, that bought and paid for this egregious display of political favoritism and the government's mandates for smaller greener cars must surely be seen as two steps backward.

For this rescue to work, a smaller GM, with the UAW's two left feet now stepping on toes not only on the assembly line but in the board room as well , will have to dance it's way back into the hearts of the American car buying public and do what the old GM and Fiysler could never do: build small cars that the public will buy in large quantities, and do it profitably. If that is not enough to ensure their next bankruptcy filing, they'll need to do this while the auto oracles in congress call the tune for future design, production and distribution. Good Luck GM and Fiysler! Things are going to get small!

How small is small? As I looked down from the drivers seat of my 96 Jeep Cherokee at the Mini Cooper that had pulled up along side of me at the stop light, I noticed the new car sticker on the window which proclaimed the car's superior gas mileage. I also noticed it did not meet the revised cafe standards of 35.5 mpg's highway that the government has mandated, not that it missed by a mile, it only missed by half a mile, per gallon. I pointed out to my wife and 3 daughters who fit very comfortably in our car that Washington had decreed that this would be the new standard for size and comfort going forward. They pointed out to me that they weren't going to drive in a car like that because they wouldn't fit. Can you imagine that? A family- sized car that your family won't fit in! Only the government could do this with a straight face. When the comedian Steve Martin said to us "Let's get small," we all knew that he was was high. What excuse can Congress give?

When the bailout music stops the next time, I predict that once again it will be the taxpayers who are out of luck, looking for a seat and finding that in the politically charged game of auto industry musical chairs ,the unions having paid the man in charge of the music will get a heads up and grab the only seat left before the government calls "game over".

One last question: Why is there a need for Ford and the other two now bankrupt automakers to give $52,000,000,000 to the UAW's VEBA to fund health care costs if Obama and Co. are going to deliver on Universal Health Care?